KUMIR, Chapter 22: Needles and Light

Jason returned carrying a small flat wooden box with dark curling patterns carved into it. Jane was too weak to actually convulse any more and her body simply shivered in waves that trembled through the ropes that bound her, wrists and ankles, to Isabella. The larger woman was breathing with the deep and easy rhythm of sleep, her face a classic aquiline portrait calm over the top of Jane’s matted hair. The hemp ropes that bound them were a dark crimson, the color of blood, and they pulled the women’s limbs out into an X on the futon. Isabella’s skin looked ruddy and almost luminous in the ambient light of the room, in stark contrast to the pallid tone of Jane’s body.

She was laying face down on Isabella, breath shallow and gasping. Her earlier brief moment of lucidity had been completely overcome by the shock of her ordeal. Blood still flowed from wounds in her nose, breast, and from between her legs, leaving scarlet trails across Isabella’s body and gradually staining the coverlet with dark red blood.

As Jason opened the needle case he glanced worriedly at Patrick. “I don’t think that bleeding is slowing down for any good reason.”

Patrick looked grim as he once again checked Jane’s wrists, both to make sure the bonds weren’t too tight and also to verify her fluttering pulse. “I know. You sure we shouldn’t take her to the clinic? I could guard…” He shook his head before Jason even had a chance to argue. “Eh, merde, I know it’s stupid. Can’t turn that place into a warzone too. Even so…” he waved towards the dark laquered box inlaid with arcane symbols that Jason pulled from Jane’s rucksack. “It’s still hard to believe that shit actually works.”

Jason gave a short, bitter laugh. “Tell me about it. I actually do this ‘shit’, and even I have trouble quite believing it. E pur si muove, though.” He set the box aside, quickly pulled off his shirt and pulled black latex gloves from a small box next to the bed, snapping them onto his wrists with practiced familiarity.

Patrick grunted. “Indeed. ‘And yet it moves.’ ” He sighed and move to the end of the bed, kneeling in seiza between Isabella’s bound feet. His gaze softened as he breathed in more deliberately, centering himself. Without looking at Jason, he asked “I’m just the ground here, right? Basically the Kinky Sex Battery?”

“Yeah, at least at first.” Jason opened the box and nodded at thin plasticine sheet that sealed the contents. He broke through it and pulled it back, revealing several long steel needles that glinted in the candlelight. He lifted one and held it reverently. “To be honest, I think I know what she had in mind, but this is her gear, her body, and frankly I feel like country doctor who’s just been handed a laser scalpel.” He held the needle higher so that Patrick could see it more clearly. “You ever see anything like this before?”

Patrick squinted up and let out a low whistle as the details of the acupuncture needle came into view. The shaft was a darker color than the stainless steel, a dark smoky gray that gave a sense of strength and durability to the instrument. The tip of the needle vanished into an invisibly sharp point, but the base of the handle was a twisted pattern of gold and brass wires, finely spun and wrapped with chaotic complexity. There was a red glint from a gem trapped in the delicate tangle, and Patrick’s eyes widened as he saw it. “Is that a ruby in the base?”

Jason shrugged, squinting to look closer. “You’re guess is as good as mine. Could be.” He put the needle back in the box and gestured at the rest of neatly arranged instruments. “The rest of these have other gems, so I’m thinking they’re color-coded to her chakras. Plus, I have a cheat sheet.” He turned the box so Patrick could see inside the lid, where a small diagram of a human body was pasted to the inner lid the washed-out colors barely visible on the weathered paper. The diagram was labeled in a script neither man had ever seen. There were seven needles in all, each with finely crafted wires holding the gems within. Patrick noticed another wider slot in the box, empty, and pointed at it. “What was in there?”

“This.” Jason held up an off-white tube, like a tiny straw, slightly shorter than the needles. “It’s the guiding tube.” He looked at it more closely and swore softly. “I think it might be made of bone. There are…inscriptions, like scrimshaw on it…” Jane moaned as a shudder ran through her, and Jason re-focused. “Well. Let’s get to it. I’m guessing that we should start with the root and work our way up, like usual.

The two men paused for a moment, centering themselves, and their breathing synchronized in deep, steady rhythm. Then Jason knelt on the futon, near where the two women’s bodies met in precise symmetry at the pelvis. He could still see the blood flowing weakly from Jane’s anus and vulva, dripping down and streaking Isabella’s thighs that supported her. Placing the needle in the guiding tube, he carefully pressed it between them, and tapped on the exposed jewel at the tip.

‘Jane let out a scream that shook the walls as the needle set lightly in her perineum.

Patrick reached across the bed and grabbed Jason’s arm. “I don’t care what she said, there’s good pain and there’s bad pain and that is the sound of very bad pain.” He pulled Jason’s arm, and the needle came out, never having seated completely. The bone-colored tube fell to the mattress, and Jason picked it up with a frustrated air.

“Dammit, I should be healing her my way. I know acupuncture, hell, I can cure a kidney infection or give an orgasm depending on what a person needs. I’m good at this, why the fuck does she have to throw this arcane shit at me?” He tossed the needle with a heavy clank back into the box followed by a hollow click as the tube followed.

They sat looking at the two women. Isabella was still sleeping soundly, her body a solid base for Jane even as her body weakened. Her skin seemed so pale as to be transparent, and Jason’s head bowed dejectedly, glancing once again over at the box with its strange intricate needles and unreadable diagram.

Then he looked again. Softly, he said “Oh…” and carefully replaced the needle he’d first tried. He picked out a different one with a soft glint of amethyst at the head.

Patrick looked up. “Oh?” he asked, inquisitively.

“I can’t read most of this stuff. But these are roman numerals.” He pointed at the I’s and V’s at the beginning of each line of strange script. “And that one I started with is labeled ‘VII’, which I’m guessing means it goes last, not first.”

His friend frowned. “I thought you always started at the root chakra and moved on up…”

“I usually do. But you heard her scream – I’m thinking we trust what it was she wanted and see what happens.”

He placed the amethyst needle in the tube guide, this time moving to the top of Jane’s head where she facedown in the hollow of Isabella’s neck. Placing the tube at the crown, Jason took another deep breath, exhaling and calling out in a strong voice “Sahasrara!” At the same time he struck the head of the needle, sticking out of the tube, and it drove into the top of Jane’s head.

The woman’s body jerked, and she let out a long, slow, shuddering breath.

And didn’t take another one.

Patrick spoke up, from the end of the bed. “OK, the not-screaming is good, but I’m thinking the not-breathing is bad. CPR?”

Jason wasn’t listening. He watched with a stunned wariness at the wire at the head of the needle. It was uncoiling, loosening like a stop-motion film of vines on a wall, the wires curling into hundreds of tiny loops surrounding the bright purple of an amethyst. He thought he could see the soft glow of a light coming from deep within. Understanding filled his eyes.

Patrick had gotten up and was reaching to turn Jane over for mouth to mouth. “No!” Jason said sharply, holding up a latex-covered hand. “I mean, I think…the crown chakra stabilizes, it relates to the death of the body! I think we just need…” His voice trailed off as all of his focus went into the next needle he pulled from the case, a crystalline sheen of dark indigo peeking from the tangle of fine metal at the head. Placing it quickly in the bone guide, he placed the tip at the juncture between Jane’s skull and neck.

“Ajna!” he cried, and tapped the needle firmly to seat it in her skin. As he pulled the bone guide off, it was as if he pulled breath into Jane; her chest swelled and a loud gasp came from her mouth. He and Patrick watched as the thin wires writhed, opening into two leaf-shapes framing a dark stone.

“Azurite, I believe,” Jason murmured, and let out his own steady breath as he saw that Jane was now breathing shallowly but regularly. Like Isabella, she seemed to be in a deep sleep. “Though…I’ve never seen it glow like that.”

“More things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” Patrick said from his place at the foot of the bed. “At least she seems more…peaceful. Grounded.”

Ground, center, purge, replenish, heal. Jane’s words came back to them, and Jason reached for the next needle, this one with a hint of sapphire gleaming from the tip. Before he put it in, Patrick looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Do you hear that?” he said, tilting his head. “That high-frequency…something?”

Shaking his head impatiently, Jason said “I can’t hear high frequencies. Too many nights sneaking into Detroit bars for loud music in my youth. What does it sound like?”

Patrick leaned forward, looking at the needle he could see coming out of the back of Jane’s skull. “It’s the needles! There are two tones – harmonics, I think – and they’re…pulsing…” He sat back. “I dunno. It probably means you’re doing it right. Sorry to interrupt.”

Jason’s gaze softened. “Sorry to snap at you, friend. Just…don’t know how long we have.” Breathing in, he seated the next needle at the base of Jane’s neck, invoking “Vishudda!” and tap-sliding the guide off in almost the same motion. The wires again seemed to grow away from the gem they protected, and a brilliant blue sapphire shone at the tip of the softly swaying needle. Jason heard the tone, this time, and could see from Patrick’s smile that the harmonics of the three notes, even those he could not hear, fit.

Suddenly Isabella’s eyes opened. The redhead went comically cross-eyed for a moment, trying to look at the glowing jewel that rested just under her nose as it came out of the top of Jane’s head. Then she looked over and saw Jason, and smiled.

“Hello, Jason,” she murmured, and then frowned slightly as she tried to move. “What…”

Jason gave a reassuring shhh. “We had to have a…a ground, I guess you’d call it, for Jane. You’re just tied up so that you two would keep the connection.”

“Yes, I can assure you I didn’t enjoy it at all,” Patrick chimed in from the foot of the bed. “But if you’d like to give me another chance at some future date, I would be glad to try to fix that…”

Before Isabella could respond, Jane’s tired voice floated up from her chest. “Hate to interrupt the dating game, folks, but could we finish sticking the pointy things in me so I can go kick some Incubiker ass?” Lifting her head with some effort she looked up at Isabella with a weak smile. “You…feel like a mother, Isabella. Like I am safe here with you.” Then her eyes widened as she felt the tip of the fourth needle enter the middle of her back.

“Anahata!” she said softly, a moment after Jason’s intonation, and lowered her head with a relieved breath. Patrick and Isabella watched Jason slide the bone guide off the needle. The room brightened as the emerald gem adding its glow to the others as the wires unraveled.

“Jason!” Patrick said, nodding towards where the women were resting pelvis-to-pelvis. “Her bleeding – it stopped!” There was a wondering tone in his voice.

Jason nodded solemnly and relief filled him. The two women were now breathing together in a balanced, even rhythm, and he tried to match the pace. “I know. And there’s also…I don’t know what to call it. Can you feel it?” The harmonics from the jewels the air thick and textured, the sharp smell of blood and ozone overlaying the buzzing feeling of power gathering. “Patrick! You’re up, man. Need you to ground both of them! Now!”

Patrick reached up quickly and placed his hands on the back of Jane’s calves where the rope passed around both women’s legs. He closed his eyes, focusing the flow of each breath through his arms. He could feel the inked patterns under his skin writhing as he pushed energy through them. Each breath amplified the connection as the energy traveled like electricity through copper, the jeweled needles drawing down energy and sending it through the knotted rope coils into the bound bodies. Patrick drew off the excess, becoming a sluicegate to control the flow of energy and keep it from overwhelming Jane’s already-weakened body. All four took a deep breath in as Jason seated the next needle, a yellow citrine wrapped in the coils at the head of the dark lacquered handle.

Their voices rang out in unison with the next invocation: “Manipura!” The power resonated through them as Jason focused on the needle. He watched the wires unfurl, and as the citrine flared to life it seemed he could see the flow of energy now, moving up from the small of Jane’s back along her spine and into Isabella’s outstretched body. The coils of rope at each wrist and ankle let the power resonate through each of the larger woman’s limbs, cycling and reflecting back into Jane. Jason saw Patrick rock back slightly as another pulse flowed through the three of them, more than Jane could handle. The larger man’s hands tightened around her calves, and he breathed out a hoarse “Kiai!” as if he were sparring in a dojo. There was a feral look in his eyes as he sent the power back into Jane with the breath, and she shuddered almost orgasmically.

“Yes…” she moaned, her voice muffled between Isabella’s breasts. “That’s what I need. Again! Please!” Jason watched as Patrick again drew the energy in, centered, and infused the small woman with another strong war cray.

Jason placed the next needle at the top of the curve of Jane’s ass, settling the point in the dimple of her tailbone. This time their voices were all husky and growling as they filled the room with “Svadisthana!” Jason’s nostrils flared as he smelled another aroma rise up from the women – the unmistakable musk of arousal. As the orange glow of the amber jewel was revealed by the tiny writhing wires at the tip of the needle Isabella began to move her hips under Jane. Patrick stared, entranced by the motion of the women as they moved, wounds healed but with glistening vulvas spread wide by the ropes.

Jane’s voice was hoarse even as she ground down onto Isabella’s mons with instinctual reaction. “Tricky part…here…” she murmured. Isabella let out a moan of sexual longing. Jane’s breath caught, but she regained the rhythm with an effort. “Got to…focus. Can’t leave the energy out there – it will – leave me – leave us – worse than before.” She turned her head slightly and glared fiercely at Jason. “After…muladhara…you’re not…done!” She buried her face back in Isabella’s chest, surrendering to the hungry lust that filled them both. Her mouth devoured the full breasts and taut nipples while her hips undulated, grinding down against Isabella’s thrusting pussy. It set the needles swaying like colored flames rippling up and down her body.

Jason knelt in seiza again, as he had at the very beginning and reached up between Jane’s legs with the final jeweled needle, then sighed and drew back. The two women were grinding their hips together, moaning and grunting with need as they pressed their mons together. The undulating motion was beautifully erotic, but it was impossible to seat the needle into the chakra at Jane’s perineum. Jason looked over at Patrick, his face in a wry grimace, and said “A little help here?”

The burly man’s eyes widened as he realized what Jason was asking for. Then he shrugged, matching Jason’s ironic grin. “Man’s gotta do, etc.” he muttered, and lifted his hands from the ropes that bound Jane’s legs to Isabella. He clapped his hands together loudly, three times, pressing them tight on the third repetition as if in prayer. He rubbed them together vigorously, building heat, and then held up two thick fingers together on each hand, as if giving some kind of religious benediction.

He was still for a moment longer, a long, centering breath flowing through him as he focused on the writhing bodies on the bed. Then he exhaled with another powerful kiai! and thrust forward, driving two fingers from each hand into their vulvas, fingers sliding easily deep inside them both. He pressed his hands towards each other as he felt the rough almond shape of the g-spot inside each of them.

Isabella and Jane both yelped and froze mid-grind, the sensation overwhelming them. Jason quickly took advantages of their stillness and pressed the needle guide at Jane’s perineum. He exhaled as he tapped the needle home. “Muladhara!” he intoned with a resonant bass that filled the room. Jane let out a low and growling sound.

Patrick, his fingers still deep inside the women, looked up at the his friend. “Jason, you are one helluva Qadish. I can feel the power resonating through them, through my fingers, hands, through me.And the needles…they’re…” He frowned as words failed him. “But there’s something else…I don’t know how to close the link…keep the energy in…”

“Beams!” Jane’s muffled voice came from the head of the bed. “Focus!”

The men looked at each other blankly, neither understanding what the smaller woman meant. Then Patrick grimaced as he felt the women begin to grind against each other again. The final needle had spun out the delicate wires and the ruby gem was casting a carmine glow over the the back of his hand where it pressed between her lips. Patrick realized he couldn’t pull out without unseating the needle. He did his best to simply move with the women, looking worriedly at Jason. The Qadish was looking thoughtfully at the seven jewel-tipped needles, filling the dim room with colorful ripples of life.

“Beams…” Jason mused out loud, sudden clarity filling his expression. He snapped his fingers. “Beams!” He reached over and rummaged in the lacquer case. After a moment he drew out a small cylindrical lighter and a bundle of dried grass, tied together. “Sage,” he said aloud to no one in particular, and flicked the lighter to ignite the brittle strands. As the purifying smoke flowed from the end he shifted to kneel near Jane’s head, passing the smudge stick in the air over the gems that flowed down the center of her body.

As the smoke thickened the air over each jewel it revealed wedges of light traveling in disparate directions through the room. As Jason passed the smudge stick over the jewel at the bottom of Jane’s ass the final shade of the fractured rainbow shone bright and strong, each color shining from the gems on a different vector.

Suddenly Jason remembered.

Purge.

He tested his theory reaching down to twist the needle in Jane’s neck slightly. The beam shifted across the room, rotating with the jewel. Jane screamed, but her voice was filled with relief, as if floodgates of pain were released as the light moved into proper position. Jason looked at the rest of the needles, frowning. “Patrick! I can’t reach them all! Help me align them.” Patrick nodded as he saw what the Qadish was intending. He drew his hand from Isabella’s pussy, her juices shining slick on his fingers, and she moaned in frustration. Patrick’s flexed his other arm, buried in Jane’s cunt, and Isabella moaned again, this time in satisfaction. Jason looked at him inquisitively, and he shrugged. “Thumbs work, too.”

Both men worked to rotate the needles to make the beams of light intersect. The vectors all led to a point about four feet over the futon directly above the women, but the gems were difficult to keep in alignment. Every twist of a needle elicited a shout of pain from Jane, and both women seemed barely conscious even as they continued to move and writhe under the shifting bands of light. The beams were burning with a darker hue, the reflected light shifting with a malevolent darkness veining the the ripples across the walls.

Jason realized they were running out of time. He had no idea how long this had taken, but he suddenly remembered Alex’s standoff with the IncuBikers. He suddenly wondered how long the technological warrior could really hold off the barbarian hordes .

Technology. “This is not technology, it’s magic.” He looked excitedly over at Patrick as he realized what was causing the difficulty. “Patrick, we’re trying too hard. Don’t focus them with your eyes.” Patrick looked up, puzzled, from the amber needle he was rotating, but after a moment he simply nodded and closed his eyes.

Jason closed his eyes as well and reached for the amethyst needle still embedded at the crown of Jane’s head. It shone in its little thousand-petaled metal flower, the tip resting on Isabella’s lips. She opened her mouth at the touch of his fingers and gave a sensual lick. He felt his cock harden in response, the time pressure and urgency adding to the erotic energy filling the room. He struggled to focus on the jewel with his mind, feeling rather than seeing the beam turn in line with the pathways in of Jane’s body as they were opened by the needles.

Suddenly his eyes flew open as he felt Jane nimbly unbuttoning his leather pants and reaching inside with strong fingers to wrap tightly around his hardening cock. “What…” he began, but she glared ferally at him with a sideways eye.

“Root…” she growled. “Ground.” Her eyes rolled up as another wave of pain and pleasure pulsed through her, but the pupils returned to focus on him again a moment later. “This is about us, not the damned needles. Connect!”

She tightened her grasp and stroked his cock, making Jason gasp. He reached for the crown needle again with one hand and the one in her neck with the other. He closed his eyes, letting the connection of her hand squeezing his cock increase his awareness as he slowly twisted the jewels into alignment. This time it felt as if the needles wanted to match up, like puzzle pieces locking into place. Jason felt as if they were seeking out the channels of energy in her body as they sank deeper. As they locked into place, he reached over to push and twist the sapphire jewel of the third needle. Jane’s hand tightened, pulling him closer to Isabella. Her eyes were closed with the ecstatic lust that filled her, but she seemed aware of the movement. As Jane pulled his cock closer Isabella’s full lips opened and she lifted her head slightly to take him in her mouth. Jason shuddered as he felt her tongue licking his shaft but also felt the connection deepen between them all. Patrick’s hand, fingers thrusting and stroking the women from inside also fed into the cycling pleasure, and even with his eyes closed Jason realized he could see the beams of colored light as they came into alignment.

He stretched for the last needle he could reach – the emerald of the heart chakra – and could feel Patrick twist the citrine Manipura gem at the same time, and the two final gems added their power to the convergence of chakric forces.

The beams met above the futon as the four of them moved and sucked and touched and deepened their connection with every stroke and moan. The light was pure now, filled with their sexual energy as every breath of pleasure drew the poisons, both physical and spiritual, out of the two women. As their arousal increased they began to move more quickly, the rhythm becoming more urgent as the need for release built. Jane pressed her face deeper into Isabella’s breasts, her soft cries muffled as she thrust again and again back onto Patrick’s fingers and down against the woman’s mons. Jason let out a low growl of impending orgasm, and Isabella harmonized with a throaty hum, her mouth still stretched around his throbbing cock. Patrick’s face was a rictus of focus and effort, eyes squeezed shut as he pumped his hand inside the two women. His hips were thrusting and gyrating as well, reveling in the sensation of the denim against his own thick cock, hard under his tight jeans.

Their eyes were all closed to better feel the pleasure, the connection to each other. They didn’t see the burst of irridescent power that exploded at the point where the beams met over the bed. Instead they felt their ecstasy, completely focused with shared intent, mingle with the forces of the jewels that tipped each needle along Jane’s body. It built to a crescendo, growls and hums and moan and grunts all metamorphosing into a unified roar of their voices joined in orgasm.